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When George Soros Broke the British Pound (2014)

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Re: When George Soros Broke the British Pound (2014)

#231

Post by aembleton »

mrtksn wrote: post #229
bArray wrote: post #159

Forgetting the politics of George Soros (which isn't suitable for HN anyway), I don't believe he is to blame for the UK government's questionable choices. To put the estimated £3.3 billion loss into perspective: * The failed NHS software update/upgrade project cost >£12 billion [0]. * The UK spends ~£9 billion a year (after calculating rebates) to be a minority voting block in the EU [1]. It's currently costing ~£0.7…

Wow, such a propaganda tone that I am not used to seeing in HN. "9 billion a year for a voting right" is like saying that the average software developer in London pays 20K a year to the government for voting rights every 5 years. You obviously don't pay taxes for voting rights, you pay taxes to sustain or improve the environment you operate in and the voting is about choosing the people and the path to that. The "div…

If a net recipient country were to leave the EU would the EU continue paying them after they had left?

Re: When George Soros Broke the British Pound (2014)

#232

Post by mrtksn »

aembleton wrote: post #231
mrtksn wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, such a propaganda tone that I am not used to seeing in HN. "9 billion a year for a voting right" is like saying that the average software developer in London pays 20K a year to the government for voting rights every 5 years. You obviously don't pay taxes for voting rights, you pay taxes to sustain or improve the environment you operate in and the voting is about choosing the people and the path to that. The "div…

If a net recipient country were to leave the EU would the EU continue paying them after they had left?

Paying what exactly? These are not really money transfers, it's not like UK sending 100 bucks and the EU giving 80 of it to Bulgaria and sending 20 back to the UK. It doesn't work like that.

The money is used for infrastructure and other stuff, maybe Bulgaria gets 80 bucks for road building but the UK benefits from it by getting the engineering contract and after the project is completed they use these roads to make moving nuts from Turkey cheaper and faster so making their chocolate industry more competitive. Maybe it was UK's proposal to build that road and France supported the idea because they also want to make the rose petals imports from Bulgaria and electric hardware exports to Turkey cheaper?

It's not a charity. So yes, if a net recipient country leaves the EU chances are that they will continue receiving EU funds just like the other countries that receive EU funds despite never being the EU in the first place.

Re: When George Soros Broke the British Pound (2014)

#233

Post by ahje »

ceejayoz wrote: post #2

The "Soros broke the bank" framing I tend to see in discussions of this is really quite odd, as if it were some sort of illegal Oceans 11 style heist. He didn't break the bank. The bank broke itself. > What kept the pound from plummeting in value was the British government’s guarantee that it would keep the value propped up, and the market believed that it would. As long as everyone believed that England would stay i…

> If you build a house on rotten stilts, and some neighborhood kid comes and kicks one of them, it's not the kid's fault when the house collapses.

If you build a house that isn't fire proofed properly and a pyromaniac sets fire to it then you won't blame the contractor, even if the house wasn't properly built. Sure, there might be fines involved for breaking rules etc. but the blame for the fire is still attributed to the person who lit it.

Soros and his associates did this to a number of countries, includingMalaysia, South Korea, Sweden, Thailand and others; this is not about a single incident where someone used a small loop hole to make some profit -- it's about the financial sector deliberately playing nation states for massive profits, affecting the lives of hundreds of millions of people in those countries.

Should the banks have been better prepared? Yes, definitely. Does that in anyway shift the blame for playing with the livelihood of millions in order to turn a profit? Not a chance.

Re: When George Soros Broke the British Pound (2014)

#234

Post by BubRoss »

matz1 wrote: post #227
BubRoss wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly what it means. If there is enough to exchange for the price that is claimed, then a billionaire can't break the peg by exchanging out pounds and forcing their hand. The gold standard collapse in the US happened when France thought they didn't really have enough gold to back their currency. They started exchanging dollars for gold and the US was forced to break the amount of gold they claimed dollars we…

>If there is enough to exchange for the price that is claimed, then a billionaire can't break the peg by exchanging out pounds and forcing their hand. Sure, doesn't mean that there is no other way to break it.

What do you mean by 'break' and how would it happen?

Re: When George Soros Broke the British Pound (2014)

#235

Post by opless »

HlessClaudesman wrote: post #216
peteretep wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany paid net €12bn. California has net federal tax receipts of $450bn. Not identical types of figures, but comparing the tiny transfer payments in the EU to the gigantic ones in real financial unions is where the difference lies.

Pretty sure that billions in Europe have three extra zeros.

Not when it comes to finance.

Everyone appears to use the short billion these days, and it caused me significant cognitive dissonance!

Re: When George Soros Broke the British Pound (2014)

#236

Post by smcl »

bArray wrote: post #183
Torn wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The politics of Brexit are also not very suitable for a HN on shorting the pound. By mentioning only the costs of remaining in the EU, not the ongoing benefits, you're being pretty disingenuous

> The politics of Brexit are also not very suitable for a HN > on shorting the pound. As I stated, £3.3 billion is very small compared to its other ongoing expenses. Factually pointing out the cost of membership is neither an argument for leave or remain. > By mentioning only the costs of remaining in the EU, not > the ongoing benefits, you're being pretty disingenuous Please read the Full Fact reference [1]. From th…

You've given three examples, two of which are specifically chosen to highlight EU-related expenses and have qualified them with comments intended to provoke a reaction ("to be a minority voting block", "paying the best part of £600 out of their own pocket to the EU - something they never voted to be a part of anyway").

You can deny it if you want, but you clearly wanted to get into it with someone here on Brexit :-)

Re: When George Soros Broke the British Pound (2014)

#237

Post by jamiegreen »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #214
jamiegreen wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should leave the EU because it was voted for by the majority

And now for years the UK can't figure out how it wants to leave, which people had no vote on. - Do you want to have a border in Ireland? - Do you want a border between Ireland and the rest of the UK? - Do you want to lose money for the NHS even though we had a bus saying the opposite? - Are you just going to say "no" to everything, but not have an idea what to do instead? Then maybe, just maybe it would a good idea t…

Well given we have a deal with the EU that has addressed the first two points, I think we do know how we want to leave.

Having another vote just because politicians didn't like the way the first one went is not democratic. We can have another vote, but lets leave first.

Re: When George Soros Broke the British Pound (2014)

#238

Post by Traster »

bArray wrote: post #183
Torn wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The politics of Brexit are also not very suitable for a HN on shorting the pound. By mentioning only the costs of remaining in the EU, not the ongoing benefits, you're being pretty disingenuous

> The politics of Brexit are also not very suitable for a HN > on shorting the pound. As I stated, £3.3 billion is very small compared to its other ongoing expenses. Factually pointing out the cost of membership is neither an argument for leave or remain. > By mentioning only the costs of remaining in the EU, not > the ongoing benefits, you're being pretty disingenuous Please read the Full Fact reference [1]. From th…

You cannot compare a loss to a transaction. The £3.3Bn is a loss, the £17.4Bn is a payment that provides regulatory bodies, courts, CAP payments, infrastructure projects. If black wednesday didn't happen you would just have an extra £3.3Bn. If we weren't members of the EU we would have £17.4Bn more, and our farmers would have lost their subsidies, rural development projects would be cancelled, we'd have no body to regulate all sorts of industries etc. etc. etc.

As well as this your other EU example is spurious too - since the 'divorce settlement' isn't a loss either. It's the agreed remaining financial obligations that the UK had previously committed to. In fact It's things like MEPs pensions which was agreed long before the UK decided to leave the union. So the divorce bill is essentially net 0 - the UK is paying nothing to the EU beyond the money that the UK and EU had already agreed to spend.

It's like saying losing a £50 note should be put in perspective by comparing it to my salary. My salary is much larger than £50, but that's not relevant, because for me to get £50 of disposable income I need to exclude all my living costs. It may be that my salary in fact perfectly matches my living costs - in which case whilst £50 might be tiny in that perspective, it's huge because it could be literally all of my disposable income.

Re: When George Soros Broke the British Pound (2014)

#239

Post by Traster »

aembleton wrote: post #231
mrtksn wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, such a propaganda tone that I am not used to seeing in HN. "9 billion a year for a voting right" is like saying that the average software developer in London pays 20K a year to the government for voting rights every 5 years. You obviously don't pay taxes for voting rights, you pay taxes to sustain or improve the environment you operate in and the voting is about choosing the people and the path to that. The "div…

If a net recipient country were to leave the EU would the EU continue paying them after they had left?

As a matter of fact, the EU is committed to continue to fund projects in the UK that had already budgeted.

From the Institute for government.

>If there is a withdrawal agreement, UK recipients will receive EU funding for projects agreed in the current funding cycle from the EU Budget.

So yes, the already committed projects would continue and so the net recipient would continue to be a net recipient until the currently committed projects were completed. That is exactly why there is a divorce bill - because the UK is paying for the obligations its already committed to, and in return the EU is going to provide the services and funding that it has committed to. There is reason to think any other country would be treated differently.

Re: When George Soros Broke the British Pound (2014)

#240

Post by zajio1am »

Reason077 wrote: post #139
Despegar wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Eurozone is fatally flawed because they share a currency but have no transfer payments between rich and poor members. So you have countries like Germany that are effectively subsidized by poorer countries. It's been a great setup for 20 years if you've been in the German capital class, not so great for anyone else.

> “The Eurozone is fatally flawed because they share a currency but have no transfer payments between rich and poor members.” This is incorrect. The EU has substantial transfer payments. Wealthier EU countries (like Germany) subsidise poorer ones (like Poland) on the order of tens of billions of Euros annually. Regional development (subsidies for poorer areas) is the second largest EU budget line item after agricultu…

> This is incorrect. The EU has substantial transfer payments.

Size of EU budget is about 1 % of EU GDP, so these transfer payments are likely inconsequential as a fiscal mechanism.

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